Infected
by Cantica10
Summary: Sayuri lived without mushi influence-until she began waking up covered in blood that wasn't hers. Can Ginko save her before it consumes her? Rated T for blood, some language, and just in case 3
1. Blood Awakening

**Okay, this is my first fanfic (sheepish grin). I hope you who read it enjoy it. And tell your friends. And forgive the completely generic qualities of it. I'd love reviews, if you have the time!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mushishi. If I did, Vic Mignogna would be in more than just episode 14 =3**

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><p>For as long as I can remember, I have been able to see small creatures that nobody else can see. They used to scare me half to death, always somewhere lurking in a corner, watching me, following me. My father was the only one who believed I was seeing something nobody else had the ability to see. He always asked me to describe them to him, and told me how much he wished he could see what I saw. My mother wasn't so supportive. She thought I was lying, trying to get attention. I used to ask the creatures to show themselves to my mother, but either they either ignored me or weren't capable of making themselves visible to someone without the "sight".<p>

My father died when I was nine. By the time I was twelve, I had run away from home, across mountains to get as far away as I could from my mother, her boyfriends, and the village I grew up in. During my journey, I started seeing other types of creatures that no one else could. Bigger ones, more menacing. They brushed against me as I slept, watched me constantly. I tried to ignore them, but I couldn't really.

As I passed through a village of fishermen, I heard of things that had been happening there every three years, about a thick fog that people would disappear into when they sailed into it, and how their bodies would come floating back to the shore three years later. They said a man had passed through their village once who could explain this phenomenon to them. The man had called himself Ginko, a mushi master. They told me mushi were small creatures nobody else could see, that could cause people to come down with bizarre illnesses and ailments. I longed to speak with this Ginko, to have him explain to me about the mushi that so few people could see. But nobody seemed to know where he was.

A little disheartened, I continued on to the next village and then the next, until I finally found a village that had less mushi than other villages hanging around it. I decided to make that village my home. About a mile outside of it was an abandoned house; a cottage, really. I settled down there, and started my campaign against the mushi. I tried everything to keep them away, until I finally figured out that they avoid the smell of incense. Now, my cottage is perfumed with the stuff 24/7. I used to choke on the overpowering scent of it, but I've grown used to it by now.

I lived my life in some seclusion. I would hunt using a bow and arrows, and gather berries that grew in the forest surrounding the village. If I happened to bring down extra game some days, I would drag it into the village and sell it to the butcher, who was fair in his purchases, if shrewd. I would use the money to buy clothes, new hunting tools, incense, and seeds for a garden. I was overly cautious about avoiding the mushi, so they couldn't affect my life. I lived like that for five years. Now, I'm seventeen, and the mushi have found a way at last to affect my life.

And they way the affected me was by _infecting_ me.

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><p>The feel of rain falling softly over me was the cause for my awakening. It washed over me in a light drizzle, feeling so good. I was abnormally warm, and this was like a slice of Heaven. Even the grass I was lying upon was pleasantly cool. I could just lie there forever and ever...<p>

Something stirred in the back of my mind. Something highly unsettling. _But why am I outside...? I didn't fall asleep out here...did I?_

No. No, I hadn't.

My head throbbed dully behind my left eye. It was all that remained of the massive headache I'd gotten yesterday.

I opened my eyes, afraid of what I might find. I was flat on my back, staring up at a gray sky, the tips of trees, and the falling rain. This was wrong. Where was I? How had I gotten here? I hadn't sleepwalked, surely. I've never sleepwalked before.

I bolted into a sitting position and had to clench my teeth to keep from moaning as my head gave one final agonizing throb, then receded into numbness. Maybe the worst was finally over.

My cottage was some hundred feet to my left; I could see it through the trees. My feet felt abused. I assessed what damage had been done to them. Several nasty cuts. My clothes were shredded, and covered with something that looked sinisterly like dried-

I gagged, rolling over and vomiting onto the grass. How did I get covered in...

_Blood...?_

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><p>I was sitting on the porch of my cottage a few days later, my knees pulled into my chest, reading an old book about a tragic romance, when my head felt like it exploded. I screamed and my hands flew to my temples on an impulse. My head! My head was being torn apart from the inside! Oh, dear God, someone save me! Someone <em>kill<em> me!

My book toppled onto the floor, and I went after it, writhing on the floor, pressing my hands against the side of my head so hard it only added to the pain. My skull was splitting, my brain had exploded, my head was messed up! It was the worst pain I'd ever felt, a thousand times worse than any of my past migraines combined. _Kill me, somebody, KILL ME_!

I could have been like that for hours, days, months, maybe years. It didn't matter, I didn't care. I just wanted my head to be normal again, to feel alive again, and not like I was dying. When the pain finally dulled, it was dusk, and although my heart was racing and there was blood roaring in my ears and I was gasping for air, all I wanted to do was sleep. Beautiful, delicious sleep. My eyes couldn't stay open. I had things to do, my stomach was complaining from lack of food, but how could I remain awake when the darkness was just so inviting...?

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><p><em>Blood. Blood everywhere. I could smell it, I could <em>taste_ it._

_I held a knife in one hand, hacking something to pieces with it...more blood... it spattered my face, and I licked my lips. Oh, the sweet taste... to have more..._

_I leaned in and lapped up the blood flowing from the wounds of the creature I'd killed. Oh, it was sweet, delectable...to bathe in it, to _drown_ in it, to stay in it forever...let me stay here forever..._

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><p>When I awoke, I was nearly half a mile from my cottage in the forest, shaking from horror. <em>What did I do...?<em> I looked at my hands and shrieked. Caked in blood. My clothes were covered in it...

I laid there, shaking and crying and screaming. _Help me. Someone help me. There's something wrong with me. Help me..._

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><p>I stared at the map, calculating how much it would cost to send a letter to each of the forty-six villages in the region. More than I could afford. Maybe if I could draw it out...a letter every couple of days. But no, what if one of my letters missed him? I needed help sooner than later. It might save lives. I needed to send a letter to every village in the region. Today.<p>

I upended my money box and watched, with a heart crushing feeling, as only a handful of coins fell out. Taking a deep breath, I counted the money. I only had enough to send a letter to three, maybe four villages.

The man who ran our postal service in this village watched me with interest. "You want something delivered?" he asked in a gruff voice, eyeing me curiously. I'd never set foot in his store before today. He may have never even seen me before.

I pulled out the forty-six envelopes, each containing a letter pleading to the villages' heads to send Ginko the mushi master my way if he passed through their village, each envelope sealed. I bit my lip and pulled out four envelopes at random, saying a silent prayer with each one that they would go to the village Ginko would be making his way through. "Just these four," I sighed, handing the man my letters.

He raised an eyebrow. "I think you need a considerable amount more than four letters delivered. How many did you come here with?"

"Forty-six. One to each village," I mumbled. That was probably a first in the history of this region's postal service.

The man looked me over shrewdly, as if assessing something about me that I couldn't possibly guess at. At last, he held out his hand. "I'll have your letters delivered, sweetheart, for free. But only on one condition."

I was so relieved that by this stroke of luck, that this man was so philanthropically offering to get my letters delivered, that I would have done anything. "Oh, yes, of course!" I exclaimed, handing over the rest of my forty-two envelopes and swallowing back a cry of relief.

"I've seen you sometimes, dragging deer to the butcher shop. You see, my buddies are big into hunting for sport. They keep the heads of their game and mount them on their walls. I have a bad leg-" he stepped out from behind the counter to show me. I flinched. His left leg was twisted gruesomely. "So I can't go out hunting. But I'd really like to be able to hang a hunting trophy like that on my wall. I want you to bring me a buck so beautiful it will put all my friends to shame. Can you do that for me?"

A hunting job? That would be a piece of cake. Oh, what luck! "Don't worry, sir. I swear that you'll get that trophy if it's the last thing I do!" I promised, shaking the man's hand enthusiastically and racing out of his store.

I skipped back home, trying to imagine what this Ginko was like and what I'd say once I finally met him. First of all, I needed him to cure me. What was causing me to wake up covered in blood was not something a perfectly sane person suddenly begins to do on their own. And those headaches were definitely not normal. Whatever was wrong with me had to be something mushi related. I was certain of it.

And then I'd have him explain to me exactly what the mushi were, and how they infected people, and why. I'd get him to tell me everything I've longed to know since as long as I can remember. I only had to survive through this until he got here, if he ever did.

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><p><strong>There you have it! Will Ginko come to her rescue? I'll post chapter two when I get, say, ten reviews. Please! For me! FOR THE CHILDREN!<strong>


	2. The Mushi Master

**Here's chapter two! I am having the time of my life with it. I know I already asked if you'd forgive me for a lotta stuff in my last chapter, but I'm going to ask one more thing. Forgive me if Ginko's personality is a little off. I haven't seen an episode in a long time.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mushishi. I can only wish that I did. Enjoy this chapter!**

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><p>Four months had passed since the day I sent the letters. By my count, I had woken up in my blood covered state forty-four times in those months. And those god-awful headaches. The same day I sent the letters, I was lurking in a tree trying to find a buck for the postal guy when one of my headaches hit me. I rolled right out of the tree, shrieking. Not only did my head hurt, now my left wrist felt awful as well. By the time my headache faded and I'd woken up, I was covered in blood over a mile from where I'd gotten the headache, and my wrist was badly sprained. I had to wait a good two weeks for it to heal before I could hunt again, and I had almost six headaches and blood soaked awakenings in that time.<p>

I snagged an incredible buck a little over a month after my deal with the man at the post office, and he couldn't have been more thrilled with it. He took the head and I sold the rest to the butcher for a better price than usual. I bought a good amount of rope with the money.

When I got my next headache and after it had faded, even though I felt like I'd die if I didn't sleep, I managed to tie my ankles down and one wrist before I succumbed to sleep. It didn't work like I had hoped it would. I woke up outside my cottage, my clothes once again stained with blood. I gave up on the idea that I could prevent it. I lived with my "condition".

I grew more and more afraid with each day. Every morning that I didn't wake up with bloodstained clothes, and where I'd fallen asleep the night before, I was always wondering, waiting for my head to explode. I had dreams about my hands tearing things apart, where I'd suck the blood from the wounds of whatever I'd cut up, and waterfalls of blood that I would bathe in. I couldn't tell if they were horrifying nightmares or blurry accounts of memory. I was terrified I'd murder a human in one of those dreams, and wake up next to some mangled corpse.

Thankfully, I don't think I've killed anyone. Every week, the headaches get worse and last longer, and I wake up further and further away from my cottage. The farthest I've gone is four miles.

I stopped hunting. The only meat I got was small game I could catch in traps- rabbits, squirrels, things like that. Mainly, I survived off of rice and fruit, and vegetables from my garden. I would sit at the window of my cottage all day, waiting for a man I'd never seen or met before to come and cure me. It was a wonder I hadn't gone mad yet.

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><p>The day I'd been longing for came at last. I woke up with my headache lingering, throbbing prominently behind my left eye. My clothes were shredded so badly that my stomach was exposed and half my skirt was gone. My feet ached, although since I'd started wearing my shoes at all times, even to bed, they weren't cut up. As I sat up, I gathered that I was on the outskirts of the village, about two miles from my cottage. My clothes looked like their original color was red, and something white had stained them rather than the other way around.<p>

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. There was somebody watching me. I was terrified. Nobody had ever seen me in this state before. If one of the villagers saw me, I'd have to pack up and move immediately. I whirled around, almost fainting as the pain in my head flared, to look at my observer.

It wasn't a villager, that much was abundantly clear. He was a man I'd never seen before, carrying an enormous backpack and smoking a lit cigarette. He wore a long black trench coat. His hair was pure white, styled in such a way that his left eye was veiled by it. His right eye was a brilliant green, a very similar color to that of my own eyes. He was fairly tall, maybe six feet, and stocky. He didn't look older than twenty-five, but I wasn't sure. I'm not too connected to people, so I wouldn't know.

I scrambled to my feet, trying to cover myself up, which is kind of hard when you have so much to hide and only two arms to do so with. The man made his way towards me, scanning me with a gaze so intense I felt like he could see straight through me. I abandoned the attempt to cover myself to hold my throbbing head instead. The man took the cigarette he was smoking and dropped it on the ground before crushing it into the dirt with his foot. "I heard someone in this village called for a mushi master. Would that be you?"

I gasped. "_You're_ Ginko?" I don't know why, but I was expecting someone...older. Not some younger looking man who still had his good looks about him.

"And _you're_ covered in blood," Ginko said matter-of-factly. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're the girl who sent for me."

"Yes," I nodded vigorously. "My name is Sayuri. And...if the horrible state you see me in isn't indication enough...I need your help. Badly."

"Is there something wrong with your head?" he asked me, indicating my hands, which were still pressed firmly against my temples.

"Oh...it's a headache," I mumbled, not withdrawing my hands.

Ginko slid his pack off his back and opened it, rummaging around in it for something. He pulled out a small box, opened it, and showed me the white capsule he was holding up. "Take this. It'll help." He tried to hand it to me, but I didn't take it. I would have, except that... "Is something wrong?" Ginko asked.

I felt myself turn red. "If I let go of my head I'm afraid it'll break in two," I whispered.

Ginko didn't bat an eyelash. He reached out and pressed the fingers with the capsule to my lips. "Just swallow it. Don't try to chew it."

I parted my lips just enough for the capsule, whatever it was, to fall into my mouth. I swallowed it as quickly as I could, but there was a bitter taste lingering in my mouth afterward. Ginko didn't say a word as he put the box back in his bag and shrugged it back onto his shoulders. "Any better?" he asked.

And it was better. My head was beginning to feel normal again. Slowly, I withdrew my hands. "What _was_ that thing you gave me?" I breathed, shocked.

"Medicine," Ginko said, and I saw a flicker of a smile on his lips. "Now, if you don't mind, could you lead me to somewhere I can rest? I received your letter in a village quite a ways from here. I've been traveling for days."

"Oh! Um, yes, absolutely. You can stay in my cottage. If you go through the village and follow the forest path, you should find it easily. I should, uh...take the long way. I don't think my clothes are very appropriate for wandering through town."

I turned to leave and Ginko placed a hand on my shoulder. I jolted and whirled around. I can't remember the last time another human being touched me. Ginko slipped his trench coat off and draped it around my shoulders. "Now that I'm here, I'm not letting you out of my sight. It's painfully apparent that you need my help."

I slipped my arms into the sleeves, which hung a few inches past my hands and buttoned the coat. It fell past my knees. "Thanks," I blushed, striding into the village with all the confidence a blood-soaked girl wearing the coat of a man she just met can muster. Ginko followed me. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time.

I managed to make it the two miles to my cottage and left Ginko to set up shop or whatever in a spare room while I scrubbed the blood off my body and out of my hair and changed into clean clothes. When I got out of my room Ginko was lighting one of my jars of incense. "This was a good idea," he told me. "I keep mushi away by smoking. This is much more effective."

"Thank you," I said, watching as Ginko sat down at my kitchen table. I handed him back his coat. "Here. Thank you for letting me use it."

He took it and examined it. "You washed some parts of it."

"Oh, I, uh..." I blushed. "I got blood on it. I'm really sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Ginko said, setting it beside him.

"Do you want some tea?" I asked, trying to act like a gracious host, since I'm the one who drug him out to this little in the middle of nowhere village in the first place.

"Yes, thank you," Ginko smiled. My heart skipped a beat.

Blaming it on my nerves, I ran to the kitchen area of my house and filled a tea kettle with water and threw in some tea leaves. I had to work to start a fire in my little fire pit, fumbling with a match, before I put the kettle over the fire. Ginko made me jumpy for some reason.

As I sat down to wait for the whistle of the kettle, Ginko asked me, "Do you live alone out here?"

"For about four years now," I told him. "Believe it or not, you're the first house guest I've ever had here."

"You're surprisingly tidy for a fifteen year old," he noted, looking around my house. I keep it fairly organized. I don't like clutter much.

"I'm seventeen," I corrected him. People always think I'm younger than I actually am. I think it's my height. I'm only, like, five feet tall. Or maybe it's my hair. I've been cutting my thick black hair myself for five years. It's not the most sophisticated look in the world.

"How long have you been dealing with your headaches?" Ginko asked, staring at me intently. I shivered.

"A little over four months now. But it's not just the headaches," I sighed, rubbing my neck. God, what was that thing he gave me? This was the first time in ages that my head's felt completely normal. Hell, I was considering stealing that little box of his that held the tiny white capsules.

"Describe your symptoms to me. In detail."

I chewed on my bottom lip. "Well...it starts with these awful headaches. They're so bad that I can't do anything but hold my head and scream. They last hours. It feels like my brain's exploded, or my skull's splitting clean in half... and when they fade, I can't stay awake. I have to sleep. And while I sleep I have horrible nightmares about my hands tearing things-living things-apart...and waterfalls of blood. And in every dream, all I want is the blood. And then the next thing I know, I'm waking up in an entirely different place from where I fell asleep, and I'm always covered with blood that isn't mine."

Ginko sat back and looked deep in thought. I didn't try to say anything else. We stayed like that for several minutes until the obnoxious whistling of the tea kettle broke the silence. I retrieved it and two cups, pouring tea for myself and Ginko. "These headaches," Ginko said. "Where do you get them in your head?"

"Sometimes all over. Sometimes just on the left side. When I wake up, my head still throbs behind my left eye. No matter how long I go without having a_ really_ bad headache, some part of my head always hurts."

"I see."

That was all that was said for the remainder of our tea session. Ginko sat staring into his cup, lost in thought. After a while, when he set his empty cup down on the table, he said, "I've never heard of a mushi that causes symptoms like yours."

I froze. My worst nightmares confirmed. "So you think...I'm going crazy?" I asked, my voice trembling. I was more afraid of that than I was of the mushi. At least if it was a mushi, my symptoms weren't self-inflicted. But Ginko was a mushishi, a mushi master. And if he didn't recognize my symptoms, there was no hope left.

"No," Ginko responded, shaking his head once. "I don't doubt that what is doing these things is caused by the mushi. But it will be a type I have not seen before."

Relief. Pure relief. "Oh...all right then. So how do we...get rid of it?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I don't even know where it's infected you or how. So I was hoping you'd let me examine you."

I started and recoiled. "You're a doctor?" I exclaimed shrilly.

Ginko had looked slightly surprised at my response. "Well...not exactly."

I curled my knees into my chest and attempted to shrink, trying not to think about those horrible memories I have from when I was eleven. The nauseating smile...the flash of a syringe... "I don't like doctors," I muttered.

"I'm not a doctor," Ginko said. "I'm a mushi master. I'm simply...trained in the medicinal practices."

"I don't like doctors," I repeated darkly, but I unraveled myself and nodded to let him know I gave him my permission to, as he had said, "examine me".

"Wait here," Ginko ordered, and stood before disappearing into the spare room. I waited nervously, picking at a few split ends in my hair. He came back a few minutes later with a large wooden box with drawers and cabinets. It must have been inside that enormous backpack of his. He set it down near a patch of sunlight streaming in through the window and beckoned me to come over to him. With a deep breath, I stood and went to him. _Just don't hurt me_, I silently begged. _Don't hurt me like _he_ did..._

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><p><strong>And that concludes chapter two! Who is this mysterious unnamed he Sayuri seems so afraid of? Why does she have a particular aversion to doctors? (Generic ending, I know. I feel like a Pokémon narrator. Disclaimer: I don't own that, either.) You can all find out just as soon as I get a couple more reviews! See you soon!<strong>


	3. Exam

**I was bored. So I uploaded chapter 3. I dunno if Ginko actually is trained in medicine or whatever words I had him use in my last chapter, but it fit my plotline so I'm keeping it as is =3. Hope you enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mushishi. =(**

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><p>Ginko had me sit down in front of him. I dropped to the floor and did my best to keep my breathing even. Hyperventilating would betray my fear, and people got nervous and jerky around frightened people. "I just want to see if I can figure out where the mushi has infected you," he told me. I nodded.<p>

Ginko placed his fingers on my face and opened my left eye wider than I could have normally. His face was a mere inch from mine. I could smell his breath- it was like cigarette smoke, not a scent that particularly appealed to me. I held my breath. He looked at my eye and instructed me to look several different directions. He repeated this process with my right eye.

Ginko's hands moved down expertly to probe my neck. With one hand on my throat, he instructed me to swallow. I did. His expression of concentration and determination never changed. He looked at my arms and legs, bending them, testing my joints. He looked at me, directly in the eyes. I squirmed uncomfortably beneath his gaze. "Where did you get all these scars?" he asked, tracing a few of the white lines on my right leg.

"I got some of them when I was hunting. I'm always falling out of trees," I answered truthfully, staring at a point just past his left shoulder to avoid looking at him. I tried to feign embarrassment at admitting to being so clumsy.

"And the others?"

I moved my leg so Ginko wasn't touching it anymore and muttered, "I don't want to talk about it."

Ginko let the subject drop. "Lie down on your back for a minute," he ordered. I did as he said. Most people probably wouldn't have, but I was desperate for any kind of help and it wasn't like anyone would miss me if I were killed, anyway. That's an advantage to being a runaway with no friends or family contact. I shut my eyes as Ginko tugged my shirt up a few inches and placed his hands on my belly. He probed my stomach gently but firmly for a few minutes, then had me sit up again.

"What exactly are you looking for?" I inquired, pulling my shirt back into place and further, shattering the silence that had draped itself around us for the last several minutes, watching him pull open one of the drawers of his box.

He pulled out an instrument I knew I had seen before, but didn't care much to remember. It looked like three cords tied together. Two ends had small spheres on them. The other had a flat metal circle. "Anything abnormal. But so far, I've got nothing," Ginko replied, looking utterly perplexed, placing the two spheres in his ears and pressing the metal circle over my heart. I flinched away from it. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"It's cold," I mumbled, only half-truthfully, and stayed perfectly still when he tried again. I waited for him to withdraw the metal from my chest. "What is that thing?" I pointed to the instrument. I had known once, but deliberately forgotten in recent years. I forgot a lot of things connected to _him_.

Ginko's expression turned to one of mild amusement. "It's called a stethoscope. I can use it to listen to peoples' heartbeats."

I was intrigued. "Wow. That's so cool."

"Would you like to listen to yours?" Ginko asked. I nodded enthusiastically. He gave me the cords with the spheres on the ends and I stuck them into my ears. Ginko pressed the metal circle to my chest again.

It was like listening to a drum, a rhythmic bum-pum, bum-pum, in a steady, never changing beat. It was one of the coolest things ever. I mean, how many people in this region have gotten to listen to a heartbeat through a stethoscope? I looked up at Ginko and grinned. "Can I listen to yours?" I asked, interested in further expanding my knowledge of this device. It had been rather fascinating.

Ginko raised an eyebrow and the corners of his lips twitched, and in response he put the metal circle over his own heart. As I listened to his, I felt my expression fall. "Is something the matter?" Ginko asked, pulling the spheres out of my ears and putting them back in his own.

"They were the same," I said. "My heartbeat and yours."

"What did you expect?"

I blushed. "I thought that each person had their own individual heartbeat," I tried to explain. "Kind of like each person has their own personality and their own soul."

"Hm. Well, that is an intriguing notion," Ginko agreed. "But each heart beats the same."

Disappointed that one of my views of the world was incorrect, I allowed Ginko to put the circle on my back, underneath my right shoulder blade, and breathed deeply upon his instruction. Then he did the same beneath my left shoulder blade. "What are you doing now?"

"Listening to your lungs." He didn't offer to let me listen, too. But I suppose that would have been harder to do.

"Have you figured out what's wrong with me yet?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, Sayuri," he said, pulling the stethoscope off my back and returning to its drawer. I shivered. That's the first time he used my name.

"How do you figure? I_ am_ going crazy, then?"

"Nothing's wrong with_ you_. There's a mushi somewhere in you causing you to have these headaches and dream what you do, and wake up covered in blood. But there's nothing wrong with _you_."

I closed my eyes. "I really hope you're right," I sighed. A dull ache was beginning at the back of my head again. How long had it been since Ginko had given me that capsule? Two hours, maybe three? I pressed my palm against the back of my skull and tried to will the ache to stop there. It didn't work-not that I had expected it to.

Ginko was taking out a stick with a black cone attachment on the end. I remembered what that instrument did, vaguely. Something to do with the ears.

My muscles stiffened when Ginko brushed my hair behind my left ear. I was too nervous. Maybe it was my incredible lack of human contact over the last five years and maybe it was Ginko himself- I couldn't tell. Either way, I told myself I had to calm down.

I turned my head and sat perfectly still as Ginko stuck the narrow end of the black cone in my ear and looked through the wider end. He pursed his lips. "Did you find something?" I asked, hopeful.

Ginko pulled the cone from my ear and shook his head. "Nothing. It's extraordinary. I can always find _something_, but with you and your mushi... it leaves no trace."

"Maybe that's a good indication that there _is_ something wrong with me after all," I suggested grimly.

"I highly disagree," Ginko said stubbornly, placing his fingers on my chin and turning my head so he could stick the cone in my other ear.

I was silent for all of a minute, until Ginko pulled the cone away with a defeated expression. "Ginko, what are the mushi, exactly?" I burst, unable to contain my curiosity another minute. "I see them all the time, and nobody else can. And none of them look the same. Some of them you can tell are the same species, but overall...I just don't understand them."

Ginko put the instrument back in its drawer and sat back for a few moments. Then he held out his arm and touched the tips of his fingers, then the tip of his thumb. "On this hand, imagine that these four points represent animals, and the thumb represents plants." He touched the tip of his middle finger. "Then, let's say people are here, on the tip of the middle finger, farthest from the heart."

I impulsively looked down at my own hand, touching each of my fingers, considering this analogy.

"On the palm of your hand are the lower creatures," Ginko continued. "And if we go down here, to about the wrist-" he touched the center of the inside of his wrist- "the veins meet as one."

I stared at my own wrist, pinpointing the thin blue lines that were my veins. Sure enough, they all combined into one thicker one. "Okay."

"That's where the bacteria and microbes are. If we try to go back up from here, it's difficult to tell which way the plants or animals are. But there are things even farther down than that. Even past the arm and shoulder." I watched him moves his finger down his arm and across his shoulder, coming to a halt in the center of his chest. "And here...the creatures that are here are called 'Mushi' or 'Midorimono'. They're very close to the essence of life itself."

I folded my hands over my own chest. "At the heart," I whispered. He made them sound so pure, so good.

"Because of that, their shapes and their existence are vague," Ginko said. "There is a separation between those who can see them and those who can't."

"They're transparent," I said. "I've seen some pass through walls or leaves."

"Sometimes what people call ghosts are actually mushi," Ginko smiled. He seemed pleased by my attention. "Some can even take human form."

I frowned. "My parents couldn't see them. My mother never believed me when I talked about them."

"You have a quality called 'Youshitsu'. It enables people to detect those things that are hard to with just the five senses. Everyone has some small ability to do that. But in most cases it remains dormant, since it's normally not a very useful ability. It only takes the slightest push for people to control that power or forget it. It's hard to share that feeling with others. You can't make them feel what they simply can't."

"My father tried," I said, chewing on my lip. "He wanted to see them so badly. Every time I saw one he wanted me to describe it to him, draw him pictures. My mother...didn't feel the same way."

Ginko opened another drawer and took out a flat, slender piece of wood with rounded edges. It looked simple. I felt like I should know its purpose, but I couldn't remember. "What is that?" I asked.

Ginko looked amused now. My reactions always seemed to amuse him. But whatever, I just wanted to get this examination thing over with. "It's called a tongue depressor. Open your mouth."

Um...that would be kind of awkward, wouldn't it? "Do I have to?"

"Unless you have a better way for me to look down your throat..."

I grinned in spite of myself. "Point taken," I said, defeated. I slowly opened my mouth. He put the wood on my tongue, peering into my mouth. I'd been right. This _was _awkward.

"Say 'ah'," Ginko instructed. I did. It sounded more like a muffled groan.

I gagged and recoiled when he poked the dangly thing at the back of my mouth. Coughing, I spluttered, "What the hell was that for? You could have warned me or something, you know!"

"Sorry," Ginko said, not sounding sorry at all. I crossed my arms.

"Are we done yet?" I grumbled. "I'm hungry and my head hurts."

Ginko laughed. "Yeah, we're through."

"Great." I leapt to my feet. "I'm going to go check my traps."

Ginko immediately stood up. "I'm coming with you."

I blinked. "How come?"

"What if you get another headache out there? How else will I figure out what the mushi in you wants? Because everything I just checked for was mushi-free."

"Fine. But if you move too slowly I'm not waiting for you," I said bossily, trying to feign control. Oh, who was I kidding? I had no control anymore. I flipped my dark hair over my shoulder and darted out the door. Ginko followed at an even pace. He was serious about always keeping an eye on me, wasn't he?

I had seven traps scattered around a mile of my cottage. The first two were empty. There was a dead rabbit in the third. "Yum," I said, licking my lips appreciatively. I knelt to remove it from the trap. There was a cut in the rabbit's side, the brown fur matted with blood around it. It smelled salty...rusty...

My head throbbed painfully. I gasped and held the rabbit away from me. I saw Ginko raise an eyebrow. "What was that?" he asked.

"I-I smelled the blood...and my head..." I stammered, trying to press both my temples with my rabbit-free hand.

Ginko scanned me with his gaze. "Maybe I should hold the rabbit. You can have another pill after we've eaten."

Pill. So that was what that white capsule was called. And that reminded me... "Do you know what time it is?" I asked, re-setting the trap.

Ginko looked at the sky thoughtfully, analyzing the position of the sun. "I'd reckon about mid-afternoon. Why?"

"I didn't know. When I wake up in blood, it's never at the same time of day. I should really get a clock or a sun dial or something."

We checked the remaining four traps, getting another rabbit and a plump squirrel.

"Not a bad haul," I nodded approvingly upon our return to the cottage. "I'll skin them. Can you start the fire?"

"Sure."

Ginko was faster at starting a fire than I was, and watching me intently as I skinned the first rabbit, holding my breath and moving away from it every minute or so to gasp for air. The smell of blood made me dizzy and my head would only throb harder. I'd been skinning my prey like this for months now.

Apparently my display of hold your breath and gasp for air was too much for Ginko, because he made me stop halfway through the second rabbit and insisted upon doing it himself. I started cooking the meat instead.

It had taken such a long time for me to skin the rabbit that the sun was already setting. And my stomach was complaining loudly. Sometimes I'd talk to my growling stomach if I was in a good mood (I'm strange, I know), but not with Ginko around. I do have some dignity. Not much, but some.

I watched the dancing shadows cast by the flickering flames and said to Ginko, "You made the mushi sound good before, when you were explaining them. But they're not."

Ginko paused, in the middle of skinning the squirrel. "Why do you say that?"

"They hurt people. They make them suffer." I turned over a strip of meat on my so called "frying pan".

"Yes, they do," Ginko agreed. I was taken aback, shocked that he hadn't tried to defend the mushi. His eyes flickered to the ceiling. "Oh-we have a visitor. Sayuri, why don't you light some more incense?"

I looked to where he was and say the small transparent mushi hovering at the corner of the ceiling. Shivering, I hurried to light a jar of incense and watched in satisfaction as the mushi floated away. "So, why do you think they're good?" I asked, continuing our conversation.

Ginko smiled. "It's just what they do. It's their way of life, their instinct. They don't hurt people intentionally. They live the only way they can."

"Oh." I sighed. "So then, the one inside me doesn't _mean_ to make me suffer?"

"Of course not."

I chewed on my bottom lip and stared at the embers. "That makes it harder to hate."

Ginko laughed. "I'll get it out of you, don't worry. I haven't met a mushi I didn't know how to handle yet."

"That's good news for me, then," I said, emptying the rabbit meat onto a plate with the rest of it and reaching for the strips of squirrel meat, trying to ignore my throbbing head.

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><p><strong>Fin.<strong>

**I don't know when I'll post chapter four. Some reviews would be nice, though =3. In the meantime, I've got a Naruto fanfic running called "I'm with the Ninja Band". I could use some reviews on that one, if you've got the time. Go check it out! Love you all for reading this!**


	4. Fearless Days

**I know I haven't uploaded anything in FOREVER =/ sorry about that. The place I live had a ton of lightning storms and our electricity was shot for a while. Then I went out of town for a bit. As of the beginning of August, I'll be gone 2 weeks, and so I figured I should get moving and upload this now.**

**I was surprised to see how many people have viewed this story. 94! Wow! It makes me happy.**

**And for those of you who have been following my Naruto fanfic, I know I haven't updated that one recently, either. Hang in there-I'm writing it when inspiration strikes, and unfortunately inspiration hasn't been knocking on my door for a while. I swear I'm trying!**

**Thank you all for reading this!**

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><p>Ginko and I had our small meal of rabbit and squirrel meat with some rice and a few wild strawberries, and Ginko asked me to tell him my story. At first I was reluctant, but then I thought, <em>why not?<em>. So I told him part of it, not quite ready to trust him with the complete version.

"My dad died when I was nine and my mother went sort of...crazy. For the first three months all she would do was sit at the window, staring into space. I had to learn to hunt in that time to put food on the table. When I was_ nine_. I hated her for a while. It was like she thought she was the only person in the world who was grieving for my father. Well, I lost someone close to me too, and I was suffering just like she was. If I had curled up into a ball and ignored the world like she did, we'd both be dead.

And then, it was like she...woke up. She started cooking the game I brought home and talking and laughing again. It was more reserved than when my father was alive, but for a couple weeks...I felt like I had my mom back. But then she started finding men to pursue. They all had a quality Dad did. It was like she was trying to replace him. When I was eleven she was shacking up with a guy I hated, and I couldn't do it anymore. I ran away. By the time I was twelve, I had found this place and settled down."

"Found it?" Ginko asked. "You didn't buy it?"

"It was just an abandoned old shack," I said, shrugging. "I chose this village because there are less mushi than normal hanging around. They really terrified me when I was younger. And there's the added bonus of this place being really far away from my old village."

"How far is this village from your home? Where you were born?"

I had to think on that one. "I don't know. A long way away. I lived on the North Ocean. And this village is only three miles away from the village on the South Ocean. I went as far as I could. My running away wouldn't have worked if I had just gone, say, a village or two over. My mother and her boyfriend would come after me." I paused. "Actually, she might not even have bothered. He would have; I'm sure of that, at least."

"Why would someone who doesn't like you come looking for you?"

I stared at him. "I didn't say he liked me. But he kind of...needed me around."

"What do you mean?"

I pretended I hadn't heard Ginko's question and stood up, tossing my plate into the bucket of water I keep in the corner with my lips pursed. I'd already answered one question I hadn't wanted to tonight. "I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed. Can I have another pill?"

Ginko was obviously dejected that I had avoided his question, but he didn't press the matter further and retrieved for me another white capsule. I took it with a word of thanks and disappeared into my bedroom. My headache was dulling already.

With complete confidence that I wouldn't be waking up drenched in blood in the morning, I slipped into an old robe and retired. I laid on my side, staring at the wall and chewing on my bottom lip. Ginko was in my house. He could cure me. I didn't know what to think anymore.

So I didn't think at all. The darkness crept up and swallowed me and I succumbed to beautiful, delicious sleep.

"I'm not sure this is the best idea," I heard Ginko say from some ten feet below me as I swung myself up onto the highest branch of the tree that could support my weight.

It was the next day, and I had decided I wanted to go hunting for big game, something I hadn't done in weeks. Ginko had trudged after me, trying to talk me out of it the whole time. I hadn't responded in the nicest manner, I guess. Unless you count telling him to shut up because we'd scare away the deer nice. I _had_ assured him I was fine, which was for the most part true. I had taken another pill after breakfast, and my head didn't hurt at all.

"Quit worrying, it'll be fine," I called down to him. "Besides, I rigged this tree so that I won't fall to the ground if I get a headache."

Ginko crossed his arms and looked skeptically up at me, watching disapprovingly as I readied my bow and arrows. "How so?"

"Come up and I'll show you."

He sighed and put out the cigarette he'd been smoking for the duration of the outing before he started to climb the tree. He made a lot of noise coming up. Any deer within a mile of here would be running for the hills. Ginko made it to my tree branch and cautiously climbed onto it.

"Look," I said. He did.

After that fall out of the tree that had resulted in my sprained wrist, I had taken the necessary precautions. I'd bought a fishing net-a thick one, one for catching really strong fish-and tied it from the branch Ginko and I perched upon now to another branch from a tree about seven feet away, creating a sort of bridge-slash-hammock. It wasn't bad for spotting game, either. I'd meant for it to be a safety net if I got a headache in a tree again, but it'd never been necessary. I'd gone hunting once after the first fall, and I'd snagged the buck for the post office guy, but after that I'd been too afraid to go hunting for fear it would happen again. My nerves had been on end pretty much twenty-four seven.

"It's clever," Ginko admitted, rolling onto the net and stretching out as though he intended to cloud gaze. He reached into his pocket for another cigarette.

"Could you not smoke?" I asked testily. "Please? I hate the smell of the stuff."

He froze, his arm poised with cigarette in hand, halfway to his mouth. With a shrug, he stuffed it back in his pocket. "All right. Do you mind if I ask why?"

"The guy my mom was shacking up with before I ran away used to smoke. I hated him. The smell reminds me of him. Now we need to quit talking." I turned my attention to the forest, scanning it for any deer.

Maybe two hours of silence later, I whispered excitedly, "I see one!"

Ginko, who I'd startled out of a light nap, jolted and sat up rapidly. "Where?"

I pointed in the general direction before positioning an arrow in my bow and aiming for the deer. "In that field over there."

Ginko squinted. I watched his eyes flicker around until he saw it. "He's not very impressive," he said. "You should wait for a bigger-"

I let the arrow go. Right in the deer's eye; a direct hit. It went down immediately, and there was no question in my mind that it was dead.

"-one," Ginko finished with a sigh.

"He's good," I said, flinging my bow over my shoulder and beginning the descent down the tree. "Let's go get him."

Ginko followed me down the tree and through the forest to the field where the deer waited. I strode up to it and pulled my arrow from its skull. I hate wasting weapons. Man, I felt so good that the blood spilling from the fatal wound didn't even bother me. I was on top of the world.

"He's kind of scrawny," Ginko said discouragingly.

"There aren't any bigger deer in this forest," I sighed. "The village men like hunting for sport. They took out all the strong, muscular deer. The kind you take down just to stuff and hang on the wall. One of them took the head and left the rest of the deer behind, the idiot. It took me a while, because of my blood problem and all, but I got it to the butcher shop, and let me tell you, I got some great meat and a great price for it. It's pelt went for a ton of money. Made a nice rug. I've only ever shot one like that myself. But it was necessary. It was for the man who sent my letters to you for free. Now, help me with this thing. We're going into town."

It took another half hour to get the deer to the butcher's. He carved it up, giving Ginko and me the best of the meat it had to offer, which sadly wasn't much, and money for the rest of it, which we spent on rice and another jar of incense (when my whole situation began, I stocked up on both like the world was ending. Now, four months later, my supplies were dwindling).

We checked my traps on the way back- one raccoon and, to my great excitement, a beaver in my trap on the river-and sidetracked to gather some wild berries from the bushes not far from my cottage, which I'd surrounded with more fishing net to keep bears and other animals from getting into.

My head was throbbing when we got back to the cottage and my stomach complaining. So was Ginko's.

We munched on the berries while he skinned our small game and I got the fire going. We worked much the same as the night before. He'd skin, I'd cook. We compiled a dinner of deer, raccoon, and beaver meat, and some wilted vegetables from my garden. I felt guilty I couldn't feed the man who was going to de-mushi me any better, but it's not like I'm made of money. I can't afford to eat like most of the villagers, having no parents who put food on the table with money from their jobs. Nobody in this village will hire me anyway, because I'm a girl and because I have no skills besides hunting.

I begged Ginko to tell me stories of the mushi he'd encountered. He laughed and agreed to tell me just one. Leave the others for later times. He proceeded to tell me an almost unbelievable tale of a bamboo stalk mushi that's water made it so you could never get out of its forest, and how a man who'd drunk the water was married to a woman who was actually a _child_ of the bamboo mushi. The man had even fathered a daughter with her. But his wife and daughter both died after his wife chopped down the bamboo stalk mushi to free her husband from the forest.

I almost cried, it was such an awful story. Romantic, but awful. "They just...shriveled up?" I exclaimed, the horror apparent on my face.

"They needed the water from the bamboo mushi to live," Ginko said grimly.

"That's just _horrible_," I mumbled, wiping tears out of my eyes. "Why couldn't you have told me a happier story? One where you saved the victim and they lived happily ever after?"

Ginko smiled at my generic desire for a happy story. "Maybe tomorrow. But to be honest, when the mushi are concerned...most stories end in tragedy."

I almost shrieked. Instead, my breath caught in my throat and my heart rate accelerated. Ginko, noticing my reaction, added hurriedly, "But not all end badly. Yours won't, don't worry."

"You're sure about that?" I choked out, remembering to breathe. Yes, breathing was essential.

"I'm very sure we can solve your mushi problem without anything life-changingly awful happening to you."

I went to my water bucket and washed my plate without saying a word, letting the developing doubts fester, before standing up and asking for another pill. Ginko retrieved one for me, but this time handed it over with a warning. "You can't take these forever. They lull mushi into a sort of hibernation. They don't get rid of the mushi. If I'm going to figure out how it affects you, you have to stop taking them."

I swallowed back the lump rising in my throat and nodded. I realized I was shaking and excused myself to my room, trying not to panic. Something was wrong with me now, mentally, in the way that I was confused as hell. It should be simple enough, right? I stop taking the pills. Ginko finds out what's wrong with me. He fixes it.

So why did I get the feeling that I didn't really want that?

I took the pill and collapsed onto my bed without changing out of my clothes, letting sleep take me before my nerves could.

Ginko let me stay on the pills for three more days. I took him hunting some more, even letting him shoot an arrow at a deer (not my best idea. Let's just say we went home empty handed.), and we took a day trip to the village on the Southern Ocean to buy some fish, which I hadn't tasted in months. I let my doubts live in the back of my mind, while I slipped into something I hadn't been in a while- happy. I had this overwhelming sense of happiness.

It was short lived. When Ginko stopped letting me take the pills, my doubts overtook my mind, and I lived in fear once again.

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><p><strong>That's all, folks! What's going to happen? Venture some guesses...in reviews! I only have three so far, and I would love to hear more from you all! It makes me feel like I'm affecting someone in some small way. Like if I stopped writing, it would matter to someone. It matters to me! Love you all for reading this and I'll post chapter five as soon as I can!<strong>


	5. Miserable Fear

**Hey everybody! I finally got the next chapter posted. I got on my profile and I saw I had two new reviews. I was so flipping excited I wrote this chapter right away, however short it may be. I hope you all enjoy it!**

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><p>I wasn't doing so hot.<p>

It was only day one of "pill deprivation" and my headache was returning at an alarmingly fast rate. My left eye was watering constantly, it was throbbing so hard. Although I knew not drugging my headaches away was necessary, I was beginning to resent Ginko for snatching the pills back. Having a normal head again, even for a few days, had felt incredible.

I tried going about the day as usual. I gardened a bit, cleaned my cottage, and checked my traps. A rabbit and three squirrels. Not much of a meal, really.

Ginko was starting to annoy me. And it wasn't his fault, it was all mine. Although I have a high tolerance for pain, it tends to make me bitter. And every time he asked me how my head was, if everything was all right, I viewed them as condescending questions and snapped back retorts before answering.

By the time dinner had rolled around, I felt rather like a ticking bomb. Who knew what would set me off? I'd been stewing in bitter resentment all day, and it was bound to burst out of me sometime. I'm not quite sure how I managed to make it through the meal without an enraged outburst, but I did, and hastily excused myself for the evening.

Instead of retiring, I climbed onto the roof and watched the sky shift from the pale orange and pink tones of sunset to the dark blue night sky. The stars twinkled faintly behind a veneer of clouds. I thought for a miserable moment about throwing myself off the roof. But that wouldn't do much. I wasn't nearly high enough for that fall to kill me. The most that could result in would be a bad sprain or-God forbid-a broken bone. And no matter how, to use Ginko's choice of wording, " trained in the medicinal practices" he was, I seriously doubted he was equipped to set a broken bone. That would mean taking me to the village doctor, and I'm not sure I could handle that, what with my completely out of control fear of doctors.

Nope. Better to stay up here and throw myself a pity party. Poor me.

I'm not quite sure how long I was up there alone. Long enough to lay back gazing at the stars and slip into a light sleep. I was only vaguely aware when Ginko crawled onto the roof and sat down next to me. "What are you doing up here?" he asked.

I started into alertness. "What the-!" I sprang into a sitting position so fast my head spun and I would have gone toppling over the side of the roof if Ginko hadn't put his arm around me and steadied me. "What are _you _doing up here?" I gasped, trying not to think about what a close call that had been.

"I asked you first," Ginko smirked. I noticed his arm was still draped over my shoulders.

"Thinking," I informed him, making an attempt to return his arm to him. He wouldn't budge. "I'm fine. You can let go of me now."

"You'll have to forgive me for not believing you," he said. And maybe he was right. I was still a little dizzy. "What are you thinking about?"

"What do you think?" I mumbled. He didn't answer. "Well, I was considering the possibility that wolves might one day learn to walk on their hind legs and overtake the humans. The fact that there's a mushi in my head that is causing this horrible throbbing headache I've got didn't even cross my mind."

I know I sounded like a bitch. I feel bad about that. But honestly, I'd dealt with enough crap today-and for the last four months, for that matter- that I really didn't care at the time.

"I'm sorry for depriving you of the pills. It's a necessary step to extracting the mushi," Ginko apologized. I guess he thought my bitchiness was his fault. "I know you're bitter about it."

Oh, that was it. I was really going to let this guy have it. I didn't care if he didn't want a piece of my mind-I would force it down his throat. I was so upset. I opened my mouth to tell him where _exactly_ he could shove his pills, and then give him the screaming of his life.

Which is why it is understandable that I surprised even myself when I burst into tears. I alarmed Ginko considerably. "Sayuri? What's wrong?" He asked urgently, immediately placing his fingers around my left eye and peering into it intensely like he had the other day during my "examination".

I shook my head, knocking his hand away from my face. "I'm _fine_. My head's not too horrible yet," I said thickly. "Just leave me alone, okay? I want to be alone."

"Why are you crying?" Ginko asked, staring at me, the shock still lingering in his expression.

"Stop l-looking at me like I'm crazy," I choked out.

"All right. How do you want me to look at you?" Ginko said. I thought he was joking, but his expression was one hundred percent serious.

"Like I'm normal and am not somebody with a mushi in their head! Like I'm not somebody who wakes up covered in blood! ...Like somebody who doesn't need your help or anybody else's," I half-shouted, half-sobbed.

"What makes you think you're not normal? I've told you-"

"Yeah, I know, it's not me, it's the mushi, right?" I snapped. "Well, you keep telling me that, but it doesn't change the way I feel about it!"

"Then _you_ tell _me_ something this time. Tell me how you feel about it," Ginko said sternly. Obviously, I was beginning to annoy him.

"I have been sitting in this cottage waiting for somebody I'd never met for four months, not even knowing if you'd come at all. I lived with the...the pain and the blood. And then you finally showed up and I was so ecstatic. I kept thinking that you can cure me, that I can get back to my life, that the dark days are over. But...I felt something else, too. It was like I didn't really want you here after all. And now I'm just...confused as hell! But...at the same time I don't give a damn because I'm so...so..."

I bit my lip and more hot tears rolled down my face, spilling off my cheeks.

"What are you?" Ginko asked softly.

"I'm afraid!" I wailed, and broke down completely. Ever since the first days I woke up drenched in blood, I'd managed to keep composure. I'd cried, sure, but not like this. Not this horrible weeping that caused my chest to hurt and my eyes to burn and clogged up my throat so badly I could only gasp for air. I was trembling so violently that my teeth were chattering, and not from the cold. And the worst part was that I was clinging to Ginko for support. The same person I'd been bitterly resenting all day. Glorious.

The last time I cried like this was after my father died. And although it was similar, it was also drastically different. Nobody, not even my own mother, had cared enough to comfort me then. I had cried like this for hours, alone in my bedroom, cradling one of Dad's shirts and breathing in its scent. It was all I had left of my father, and even that had faded eventually.

This was...unfamiliar. I had somebody with me. Maybe he wasn't too thrilled to have a sobbing girl in his arms, one who had been bitterly resenting him not five minutes ago, but he wasn't moving away. I wondered what was going on in his head. Mine was almost too jumbled to handle.

He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We sat in silence, with no sounds present but that of the wind and the lonely cry of a falcon circling some ways in the distance.

How many questions did I still have unanswered? Too many. Was I still afraid? Absolutely. Would Ginko ever get this mushi out of me? Lord, I hoped so.

But, for now...it was almost enough to know I had another person here with me, who cared about my well being and was going to go to several lengths to help me.

A faint smile formed on my lips and my head continue to throb.

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><p><strong>I liked it, personally. What did ya'll think? Reviews? =3 I love you all for reading this!<strong>


	6. The Beast

**Well... after almost a year, I am posting the next chapter! I'm sure all of you are ready to kill me by now, and I don't blame you... I have been a bad author and do not keep my promises to my readers =( But it is back! Actually, I'm publishing this during FINALS WEEK, which is probably really stupid since I should be studying for my 18 page US history final tomorrow... (grimace) pray 4 me, plz! And once the madness is through with I hope to be bringing you more chapters of Infected at a much more consistent rate!**

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><p>By the time the mushi decided to make its next appearance, I was completely miserable. For three days, the throbbing in my head grew increasingly worse until it was all I could do every minute to keep from screaming. I felt horrible for Ginko, too, because it got so bad that all I could do was curl up in the fetal position and moan occasionally for the last day and a half. We couldn't go out to gather the game caught in the traps because he knew as well as I did that I couldn't handle the scent of blood.<p>

No matter how much I protested, Ginko insisted on conducting mushi-locating exams daily, all of them identical to the one he performed on the day of his arrival, and still he found nothing. This irritated me, but I put up with it. Each day, I prayed for some shocking new development in my case, but nothing ever turned up.

And then, at long last, it happened.

It hit me during our meager breakfast of rice and spring carrots. One minute, the throbbing in my head was terrible but not completely unmanageable; the next I was screaming bloody murder as my head exploded from the inside out, sending jolts of fire ripping through my nervous system, spreading so much further than just inside my mind. Every part of me burned, but nothing worse than my head, which seemed to be tearing itself apart.

I was so consumed by the agony that I only vaguely registered Ginko as he leapt to his feet and hurtled across the room towards me, dropping to his knees beside my writhing, convulsing body. I must have looked possessed.

And I may have been.

I flinched away from him when he reached out to look at my eyes, begging him to just end me, please. This wasn't any way to live. He kept trying to say something to me, but I couldn't register anything more than the sight and touch of him, or else I surely would have made the flames ripping throughout my body hotter, made the knife inside my head sharper.

Ginko persisted, checking my eyes despite my anguished squeals of protest. He froze for a moment, looking to be a mix of horrified and excited, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Opening it, I registered a handful of sleek red capsules. More pills. Not like the white ones that eliminated the pain. What would those do?

I refused to let him give them to me, and in the end he was forced to shove them inside my mouth before I swallowed them. I think he was trying to shout apologies to me over my screams. And then I understood why.

The worst moments in life are when you think that your pain cannot get any worse, you've gotten through the most agonizing part, and you find out you are so incredibly wrong. My pain intensified by what seemed to be a hundredfold.

I made myself hoarse shrieking as every part of me exploded into agony. I couldn't even see anymore, feel anymore, hear anymore. My hands were clamped so tightly against my head that I was surely going to split my skull open that way, but I wished I could and just die now, rid myself of the pain forever. Nothing could be worse than this. My mind was liquefying, shredding itself to mush, and someone had surely lit me on fire, but instead of burning away my nerve endings it was only making the pain a thousand times worse.

I don't know how long the pain lasted. Maybe a few seconds. Maybe minutes. It could have been hours or days or years, but it felt like an eternity to me. When it finally began to ebb and fade, leaving only a splitting headache that I was almost grateful for remaining, I got enough of my senses back to realize that there were tears streaming down my face, Ginko was holding onto me as though both of our lives depended on it, and I was holding onto his arms so tightly that when I pulled away, blood seeped from the tiny nicks in his skin made by my fingernails.

I turned on him. "What the hell was that?" I screamed. He was blurring in and out of focus. I could feel the same familiar fatigue washing over me. The blood trickling from the injuries I'd given him smelled so very_… delicious_. I let out a small whimper of longing.

Ginko looked confused by my sudden sound of yearning and cautiously replied, "It was a long shot… it accelerates a mushi's abilities. I'm very sorry for putting you through that."

The part of me that was still aware of what had just happened glared at him. The other part, the one that wanted his blood, moved closer to him, as though I were a predator stalking my prey. "You could have given me some warning," I gasped.

"It would have frightened you."

The hell with that! What was I, his experiment?

I was so tired… but there was blood right here… right in front of me… too good to resist… to time to sleep, to rest… just blood, luscious, sweet blood…

I felt the smaller, aware part of me crumble and gave myself over to the beast. I had no control over my body. I was still inside of it, but there was something else controlling me. I was just a spectator, trapped in the corner of my mind. And I was suddenly very aware of another presence inside of me, one that possessed not so much thoughts as instincts. It was an animal want that fueled everything my body did.

Ginko's eyes widened. "Sayuri," he breathed, slowly moving away from me. "Your eyes…"

I tried to ask him what it was about them, but my mouth wouldn't open and my voice wouldn't work. I had no control over that, either. Instead, a feral snarl ripped from my throat. I moved closer to Ginko, following a steady rhythm, waiting for the opportune moment.

And then I saw it. My reflection in the cottage window against the twilight sky. My black hair was ragged and rough and wild. My face was sunken and hollow, the face of a girl who hasn't eaten heartily in three years. But my eyes were no longer green. They glowed silver with deep black slits for pupils.

The part of me that was still aware screamed.

The part of me that dominated my body let out a piercing screech, a battle cry, and pounced.

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><p><strong>Yes, I am leaving it on a cliff hanger. Like you guys need any more reasons to want to kill me... of course, if you do, you'll never find out what happens, now will you (evil grin)? So, drop me a line in a review and tell me what the heck you think just happened! I love you all and I apologize once again for making you wait an unholy amount of time for this chapter! Also, I do not own Mushishi. I just felt the need ot add that disclaimer. Teehee!<strong>


	7. Enveloping Darkness

**I left you all hanging for the longest time again. I apologize, as I always do. I've been telling myself for a month I should update this story. I'm a little surprised I finally sat down to write it. At one point, I get a new review and suddenly I have to give all of you the next installment as fast as is humanly possible, so here it is. Once again, so sorry for making you wait.**

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><p>Waking up and not knowing where I am is never pleasant, no matter how accustomed to it I've grown in the last several months. I was lying flat on my back in the middle of the forest, and when I sat up and looked around all I could see was trees in every direction. I had gone very, very far this time. I gasped when what little that was left of my shirt fell into my lap, leaving my upper body entirely exposed. I clutched at the shreds of fabric, trying to regain my modesty. I was blushing and I couldn't even see anyone.<p>

I shifted my weight and felt something sticky beneath me. Oh, god.

Looking down, I nearly vomited. I was sitting in a pool of blood. And the first thought that came to me was, _Oh dear god, not Ginko_.

Ginko. I'd almost forgotten.

I'd attacked him. Last night. My eyes had gone silver and I'd lost control of my body and I'd attacked him and I prayed to God and any other powers that may be that this wasn't his blood I was lying in.

I jolted when something heavy was draped over my shoulders and craned my head to see what it was. A large green coat. And standing above me—

"That was the scariest damned thing I've ever seen," Ginko informed me, dropping his cigarette into the bloody pool and crushing it with his foot. His sleeve was torn and bloody, and I winced when I realized it was probably me who'd cut into his shoulder. Most likely I'd done it with my bare hands.

"What happened?" I whispered, clutching the edges of that coat and drawing it tightly around my body as Ginko helped me to my feet. My head was throbbing, though the pain was much, much tamer than it had been in the last few days. "Where are we?"

"Middle of nowhere. You slaughtered a deer with nothing but your bare hands and your teeth, drank your fill of its blood, and dragged the carcass away from you—" he nodded his head towards a clump of trees some twenty feet to our right. "Before you came back here, started rolling around in the blood like you were having the time of your life, and passed out."

I let out a long, shuddery breath. That explained so much, to be honest. Why I've been waking up drenched in blood but never seen a dead creature where I wake up. Why I'm always waking up in the middle of nowhere. When I lose myself, I hunt, I kill, and I feed. Or at least… the thing inside of me does. "You followed me all the way out here?"

"Climbed a tree and observed from a safe distance. I got lucky last night. After you attacked me – dug those nails of yours pretty deep into my shoulder, I might add – the deer ran straight past the house. It was wounded and you bolted out the door and chased it down, all the way out here. Fastest I've ever seen a human run. I barely managed to keep up."

"So… do you know what this thing inside of me is yet?"

Ginko sighed and shook his head. "Not a clue. How's your head?"

"Way better. It still hurts, though," I informed him, rubbing my right temple. To be honest, compared to the way it's been hurting continuously and especially the supernova that exploded inside my brain last night, this pain was practically pleasant.

"Mind if I check you over when we get back to the house?"

I cringed, like I usually do when he mentions his medical-type instruments, but nodded my assent.

He sighed again. "Do I ever get to know why you're terrified of doctors? I'm not a doctor, I'll remind you."

I shuddered, not from cold (though it was rather chilly). "It's… not something I like to even think about, let alone discuss," I mumbled. "But… if you really want to know…"

As Ginko and I walked back – I followed his lead – I relayed my tale to him. The reason I ran away from home all those years ago.

My mom was always looking for another squeeze after Dad died when I was nine. She tended to go for guys that looked like him. Which is how she ended up with a man named Kuro Sasori when I was eleven. He was a doctor. One of the only three doctors in the village in fact, though the least accomplished.

I never liked him, though he showed a rather intense interest in me. When he and my mom started shacking up, he revealed what a sadist he was – but only to me. My mom wouldn't believe it when I tried to tell her. He'd burn me when he was bored, so that he could treat my wounds, just for something to do. He'd throw me down stairs, out the window, across the room. And when my mom would come home to find him treating my injuries, she'd reward him. _Really _reward him. You know what I mean.

But I put my foot down when he began to torture me with the needles. Try as I may to inform my mother, she wouldn't listen. And so, instead of living in that hell with a man who tortured me and a mother who didn't care about anything but getting laid by her boyfriend, I left.

That was five years ago.

Ginko, once I'd finished my story, stared at me with muffled horror.

"What?" I asked him. "It was a long time ago. But now you know. That's the reason I ran away and that's how I got all those scars that I didn't get falling out of trees and that's why I hate all your medical stuff and get really nervous when you look me over."

He shook his head. "It amazes me that you're so strong. Most people would have gotten depressed, even killed themselves, rather than do what you did._ And_ you suffered through this while being afraid of the mushi your whole life. I'm… shocked by your toughness."

I stared at him, surprised by his praise. "Um… thank you."

He nodded. "Well, we're back," he announced as we approached my cottage. He looked towards me. "Go get yourself put together. I'm going to bandage up my arm and then we can go out and check your traps."

"What happened to looking me over?"

He shrugged. "It's not like we've found all that much with the previous exams. Though I've officially confirmed your mushi is somewhere in your head. Most likely the area of the brain that controls your consciousness.

I shuddered. "I hate to think there's something slithering around inside my brain," I whispered.

"I'll get it out. I promise," he reassured me. "Now, really. Go get some clothes on."

I ran into the house, careful not to let him see the grin on my face.

I liked Ginko a lot. More than I think I should.

When he leaves, I don't know what I'm going to do. Curl up in a ball and cry, probably. I thought about that as I got dressed and washed the blood I'd gotten on Ginko's coat off. Maybe… he'd let me come with him.

It was the only possible outsome I could see. Because if I had to return to isolation, I would surely go mad. And I'd miss his company for the rest of my life if he left me here alone.

Dinner was excellent. The blood from the rabbits and squirrels we'd found in my taps only made my head pound a little bit. From the way Ginko made it sound, the mushi got more than its fill of blood last night and would probably sleep for a couple of days. I decided to stop worrying for a little while.

Three more days and my head slowly began to pound more violently, more painfully, until that morning when everything changed.

Until the third morning when I woke up.

I became aware of being awake, under my covers, and sighed with relief. Even though I hadn't gotten the excruciating headache last night, I was always relieved when I woke up in my house. I opened my eyes and paused. It was still pitch black. Not morning.

Then what the hell were the birds outside my window singing for?

I groaned and rolled over, stuffing my face under my pillow. Surely those birds were just stupid and I could still sleep for a few hours.

"Sayuri? You awake?" I heard Ginko call through the door. Great. He was up in the dead of night too?

"Yes, I'm awake. It is the middle of the night and I am awake. What do you want?"

I heard the door open and felt Ginko's presence by my side. His voice was very close to my ear. He must have been kneeling. "Sayuri, look at me," he said urgently.

I got the feeling there was something wrong. Very wrong.

I pulled my head out from beneath my pillow and looked towards his voice. Because I couldn't see him. It was too dark.

"Oh, god," he whispered.

I began to panic. "What?! What is it, what happened?!"

"It's your eyes again," he breathed. "They've gone almost gray… like you've gone…"

I let out a few short, ragged breaths. "Ginko?" I whispered in terror. "What time is it?"

His answer came after a few tense moments. "It's almost eight in the morning."

I let his words really take root in my head before I said anything else. And when I did, it came out as a wail of despair and horror. Reaching for my eyes and flinching when i felt my fingers brush against my retinas, knowing my eyes were open even though it was morning and I should be seeing so much because my eyes were open, I started hypervantilating and cried out despairingly, "I'm blind, aren't I?! Oh, god, Ginko, I'm blind!"

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><p><strong>Another cliffhanger. You all probably want to kill me again.<strong>

**I really don't know when I'll put the next chapter out, guys. I'm applying for collages and keeping up with 4 other fanfictions (I should actually be keeping up with five others, but I kind of dropped Pet Shop of Horrors for a little while, though I intend to pick it back up someday). I hope you enjoyed this little chapter, though, however late it may have come out, and offer me your reviews, even though I am aware I do not deserve them, as my updates are so infrequent.**

**I love you all, thank you for reading, and I apologize once more.**

**Phantom, out!**


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